


And If We Fall

by Sororising



Series: Anchored [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional, M/M, Not all angsty though I promise, Physical Disability, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Secret Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-09-02 01:26:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8646229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sororising/pseuds/Sororising
Summary: Jim is spiralling as he falls - as he falls - and Sam’s flying before his mind even catches up to what’s happening; he’s never flown this fast in his life - except he has, once, and he was too slow then as well -He wrenches himself back into the present - it takes more out of him than it ever has before; his heart feels as though it’s about to explode, his lungs are burning up, can’t take enough air in; his thoughts are like shrapnel, scattered pieces of something he isn’t sure will ever be whole again, god, he can’t do this again, he can’t - and lands, feet steady even if his whole body feels like it’s shaking, takes a step forward -“I’m so sorry,” he says, unable to stop himself from reaching out, needing to -And Tony blasts him back, with one flick of his wrist.





	1. Divided

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was distracting myself from my 20 WIPs by going on tumblr, as you do, and came across [this post.](http://lexrambeau.tumblr.com/post/147824157639/bring-on-all-of-the-samrhodey-fics) And, you know, 21 and 20 are very similar numbers, and the world could always use more SamRhodey!
> 
> This fic takes a bit of inspiration from my SamSteve fic [The warfare long.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7845874/chapters/17913826) You don't have to read that to read this though.
> 
> Sam in this chapter is (very understandably) kind of a mess. If you're after the fluff and happy ending, maybe bookmark this until it's finished.
> 
> The title is taken from a poem I wrote (aaah) and posted on tumblr (aaaaaaaah) [here](http://sororising.tumblr.com/post/153626688378/image-source-ficlet-below-and-if-we-fall) if you're interested (It's SamRiley, not SamRhodey). The full line is 'And if we fall, remember once we flew.'

* * *

* * *

Jim goes down, and Sam’s world ends.

Again.

Jim is spiralling as he falls - as he _falls_ \- and Sam’s flying before his mind even catches up to what’s happening; he’s never flown this fast in his life - except he has, once, and he was too slow then as well -

He wrenches himself back into the present - it takes more out of him than it ever has before; his heart feels as though it’s about to explode, his lungs are burning up, can’t take enough air in, his thoughts are like shrapnel, scattered pieces of something he isn’t sure will ever be whole again, god, he can’t do this again, he _can’t_ \- and lands, feet steady even if his whole body feels like it’s shaking, takes a step forward -

“I’m so sorry,” he says, unable to stop himself from reaching out, needing to -

And Tony blasts him back, with one flick of his wrist.

* * *

* * *

The Raft is - quiet.

Sam’s thoughts feel very, very loud in the silence.

He’s never been good at this. He can wait in stillness for hours, if it’s part of a mission, if it’s for a purpose.

This is just -

Waiting. 

He’s so glad he was never captured on any of his ops; he doubts he could have held up long under those conditions. He knows his limits. 

Except - except he has been captured, hasn’t he? He doesn’t want to think of himself as a prisoner of war, but he can’t deny the _prisoner_ part.

Everything about this is fucked up. And he can’t stop replaying it in his mind, flying, flying as fast as he could but not fast enough. 

He’s never fast enough.

He hopes the others are okay. He can see Clint, sometimes, in the cell opposite. When the light hits them the right way, at least. They’ve exchanged a few signs, but Sam’s ASL is clumsy and unpracticed, and he knows that he’s too far away for even the world-famous Hawkeye to read his lips.

Still. It’s more contact than he’s been able to have with Scott, or Wanda.

God, Wanda.

They put her in a fucking _straitjacket._

Sam doesn’t know much about her, when he thinks about it. She talks to him, sure, but not about - not about what she's been through. He's never wanted to push. He knows what it feels like, that need to keep some secrets your own. Especially when you've already had so much taken away from you. The things he does know about her life are second-hand. That she was - experimented on, or something, and that just makes him want to punch everything within reach, because he has no idea how old she is but she’s definitely too fucking young to have gone through anything like that. Not that it isn’t horrific to think about that kind of torture happening to someone of any age - he really doesn’t want the details of what they did to turn Bucky into the Soldier - but from what he’s gathered, Wanda’s had a hard time in life since she was a child.

The world’s such a fucked up place. 

He has no idea what exactly her powers are. But he isn’t sure if anyone knows their limits for sure, not even her, so he doesn’t let that worry him. Not like he’s short on things to worry about, why add more to the list?

He does know that she lost her brother. Her twin. 

Is there anyone here who hasn’t lost someone?

They have to get out of here. Soon. If Sam feels like he’s slowly losing it, trapped in here with nothing to do but stare at the walls of his cell and think through every single worst-case scenario - Steve could be dead, maybe that’s why he isn’t here yet; something’s going to take him down one day, he acts like the serum made him fucking bulletproof - then how must the others be feeling? 

Wanda, who’s even more restrained than the rest of them, because the guards in here are terrified of her and what she can do.

Clint, who’d been trying to get out of this game for the past year, who’s got his family waiting for him, his family who never know if this is it, if this is the time he won’t walk back through their door ever again.

Sam tries very hard not to think about his own family. His mom. His sister. He wonders what they’ve been told, if anyone’s even got in touch with them yet. They’ll have seen the news, of course - news which might be calling Sam a fugitive, a wanted man. 

They won’t believe it, Sam knows that. They’ll be waiting to hear from him; they won’t know what to think when he doesn’t answer their calls. Won’t know if they should be hoping for the best or dreading the worst. 

Scott has his daughter, and even if Sam’s heard him say that she might be better off without him, he must be missing her so much right now. 

He pictures little Jody. His first niece. She’s just turned six; he’d missed her birthday. He never wants to miss another one. If he - no, _when_ he - gets out of here, he’s going to throw her another party, tell her that she gets two birthdays ‘cause she’s just that special.

His thoughts are growing more and more disjointed by the hour. God, he’s stronger than this. He has to be. They haven’t even been tortured, for fuck’s sake. He’s a highly skilled PJ; he’s been in worse situations than this, and been trained for _much_ worse ones.

So why the hell isn’t his brain co-operating this time?

Jody had dressed up as the Falcon for Easter, because she’d said that Halloween was just too far away. Sarah had sent him pictures, and he’s not too proud to admit that he’d shed a couple of tears in-between his fits of laughter. 

He tries to visualise his favourite picture, holding it in his mind; a talisman against the way the walls in here feel like they’re closing in on him, like he’s never going to see the sky again. 

Little Jody, in a cheap Falcon costume, definitely a knock-off rather than anything licenced; her pink glittery fairy wings taking the place of his metal ones, because she said they were much prettier and why doesn’t Uncle Sam paint his pink? Her hair in two uneven puffs - Sarah had told him that she’d wanted to do her own hair, and he’d spoken to Jody on the phone later, telling her what a good job she’d done, and she’d laughed at him and said I wanted to shave it off like you but Mommy said no and god he misses her so much, misses them all; she’d walked proudly into church with her wings and his suit, and she’d told him solemnly over the phone that Jesus would have liked her outfit because Falcon is kind of like an angel, isn’t that right Uncle Sam, you fly down and you rescue people and you keep them safe and -

Sam bites his tongue so that he doesn’t let out any kind of noise, doesn’t want the guards to come and see him like this, see him falling apart into shards of himself.

Jim had smiled so bright when Sam had told him what Jody had said, said he couldn’t wait to meet her, no, _no,_ he’s not going to think about that, anything else but that -

He needs his mind to stay occupied, needs it with a desperation that would scare him under normal circumstances - god, maybe this is his normal, now - because no matter how painful it is to think about his family, to wonder when he’ll next see them, that pain is one he’ll gladly welcome if the alternative is wondering whether or not -

Whether -

No.

He’s alive. He has to be.

If he isn’t - if their last conversation had been a fight, if their last sight of each other had been - had been - god, Sam needs to know what Jim had been thinking in the battle, he can't live with the knowledge that if he hadn't moved out of the way it would have been him; he needs Jim to be alive because if he isn't - no, _no_ \- he _can’t_ be gone. He just can’t be.

It isn’t hope keeping Sam going right now.

It’s dread.

* * *

* * *

And then Tony - no, Stark - walks in. 

Sam listens to him talk to Clint, waits for him to turn round, holds back everything inside him that won’t stop screaming.

“How’s Rhodes?” he asks, the second Stark looks at him. He tries to sound casual. A concerned friend, a soldier hoping a comrade will make it through.

Sam has no idea what he looks like right now, but he guesses it’s anything but _casual._

“Transferring him to Columbia Medical,” Stark says, and Sam locks his knees tightly so that he won’t do anything humiliating, like collapse onto the floor of his cell.

_He’s alive._

Sam had hoped, had prayed; he’s not even religious anymore, but if there was any chance someone was listening to him he wasn’t going to pass it up. But he hadn’t _known,_ and his prayers hadn’t been much of a barrier against the tidal wave of his fear.

He’s alive. 

He sends Stark after Steve and Bucky, because he doesn’t know what they’re about to face, and because he hopes like hell he’s reading Stark right and that he’s seen where he went wrong.

He spares a second for another prayer, hoping that he hasn’t made the wrong decision.

Every decision put in front of him recently has felt like he’s choosing between bad and worse. He’s so fucking tired of this. Of everything.

All the walls are grey, in here. That’s smart. You can drain someone’s hope a hell of a lot faster if you take away all the colour in their life.

“Thanks,” Stark says, and Sam knows he must be in so much pain right now; Jim’s told him more than enough about the guy for him to know how he’ll be reacting, with guilt and self-loathing, his brain forming illogical patterns - _I created Jarvis, and Vision wouldn’t exist without Jarvis, technically this is all my fault._

It’s not that Sam doesn’t care. Not exactly. He just - he doesn’t have the space inside his mind to feel pity for Tony Stark, not right now, not even when they’re both united by this one thing - by their fear, and by their love for the same man.

_Love?_

That’s a new realisation, and it slots into place in Sam’s heart with ease, as though it had always been there, really, just waiting for him to recognise it.

Sam nods, once, in acknowledgement. He doesn’t say _you’re welcome,_ doesn’t ask Stark to pass on a message. He stays standing, arms folded, posture as rigid as it had been in his days of marching in formation, and he watches until Stark leaves.

Then he goes to the one corner of his cell that no-one can see into - there’s a camera on him, but he doesn’t care right now, doesn’t care about anything except - except - and he sinks down, rests his head on his knees, and he cries.

* * *

* * *

He doesn’t even try to keep proper track of time after that. How many minutes or days or hours are passing doesn’t seem so important now; nothing does, really. Jim is alive. He’s alive.

It’s a refrain that some part of his brain never stops repeating. He doesn’t think it ceases even when he manages to sleep for an hour or so. He’s been through this before, only back then it had been the exact opposite. 

_Riley is dead,_ had been the last chant his insistent brain had refused to let go of. _Riley is dead, and you didn’t save him._ Over and over and over, as he completed his mission, took off his wings, as he was flown to Dover Port, to the mortuary where too many soldiers had been taken, as he watched the lid of the coffin close with a gentle click that sounded a thousand times more final than the RPG exploding had.

This time, he should be overjoyed. He can recognise that, but it feels like he’s seeing his emotions from a distance. He isn’t experiencing them, not the way he should be. His relief, his fear, his anger - they’re all there, lined up neatly in front of his brain, waiting for him to salute them and give them their orders. He can see them, he just can’t feel them.

Is this what going mad feels like?

When he sees Steve walking towards him, he finds the strength to stand, and smile, and to help Steve talk to Wanda, comfort her, and he keeps going, because that’s all he knows how to do when someone needs him: push down the emotions that are trying to break through to the surface of his mind, bury them deep, hope they fucking stay put, and _keep going._

* * *

* * *

“I’m not going to Wakanda,” he tells Steve, hoping like hell that his voice is steadier than he feels.

Steve looks like he’s in pain. “I don’t want to leave you on your own,” he says, and Sam knows he isn’t lying.

He also knows that there’s someone else Steve doesn’t want to leave, and he isn’t going to force him to make that choice.

He very carefully doesn’t ask himself if that’s because he’s being kind, or because he’s afraid of what the answer would be.

“Go back,” he says firmly. “I’m serious. Go back to Wakanda, stay with Bucky. Take a million pictures for me, yeah?”

He’s always wanted to go to Wakanda, held it up in his mind as some kind of paradise, but right now there’s only one place he needs to be.

Steve is still hesitating, he can tell. “What are you going to do?”

“You can take me to DC,” Sam says easily. “I want to see my family again.”

It’s never been hard to read Steve, not even when they were strangers, joking around about beds and music in a way that had made Sam want to pinch himself, because he could swear that Captain America was _flirting_ with him.

He wishes he could talk to Steve about this, and knowing that he can’t only makes him want to more. 

But it isn’t his to tell. Or at least not only his, and there’s some loyalties Sam will never let die.

“Okay,” Steve says at last, and something in Sam relaxes, and something else sends a quick flash of disappointment into his chest, and he ignores them both. “But you have to let me know if you need anything. Promise me?”

He does mean it. That’s his genuine, Steve-Rogers-cares-about-you expression, not the too-earnest one he puts on for the paps and the fans.

It makes it much harder to lie to him.

“Sure I will,” Sam says, then pulls him into a hug to avoid any more heartfelt offers.

* * *

* * *

The feeling he gets when he steps back inside his house is familiar. And not in a good way. It takes him a few moments to place it, and he has to close his eyes and lean against the wall for a second when he does.

His mom and Sarah had met him at the airport, after his first tour of duty. He’d been so happy to see them that he hadn’t processed much else at first; he’d listened to them talk in the car, content just to let their news wash over him as he looked out of the window and catalogued what had changed and what had stayed the same.

And then he’d stepped inside the house he’d grown up in, the house where he’d spent almost his entire life, and that distinction had fallen into sharp relief.

 _He_ had changed.

That was the only explanation for it. For the way his room seemed too small, too confined - he’d not had much space in the barracks, sure, but it had been one large room with eight beds. 

For the way his vision seemed slightly off, like he’d remembered the colours of the walls wrong and his brain was having trouble bridging the dissociation between memory and reality. Like he was half in a dream, or in that borderland between sleep and awakening, trapped in an almost-familiar world that made him so much more uneasy than a brand new one would have.

Every small change - a new ornament, the framed picture of him in uniform in pride of place on the mantelpiece, Sarah’s hair being in box braids instead of cornrows now, even the fresh coat of paint on the front door - made him feel more and more on edge, like he was a guest in a place he should belong without question. 

It had faded, of course. He’d settled in again, and maybe it had never been quite the same as when he was younger, but what is?

He still remembers the feeling, and the variations on it he’d had every time since then. 

Every time he’d come back from war.

Nothing’s changed in his house now, obviously. The only addition is the pile of junk mail he kicks to the side of the hallway.

But he still feels out of place. 

He doesn’t have time to dwell on that, though. Which is good, it’s not like he _wants_ to start wondering things like if he’s ever going to have a normal life again.

A quick google search tells him that Jim’s been transferred again, out of Columbia. Sam wonders why, if maybe there’d been some kind of security issue, but he doesn’t waste much time thinking about it. His mind keeps switching between the hyperfocused state he used to get when he was on a rescue op - can’t fail, failure isn’t an option, stay alert, stay _awake,_ Wilson, people are counting on you - and a dizzying, very unhelpful litany - need to see him, need to see him now, is he really okay, was Stark lying - that Sam’s pretty sure could turn into outright panic if he let it.

His brain can’t decide what to feel, how to act, and he doesn’t feel like he has much control over either of those right now. He’s on autopilot - he winces at that thought, just a little, because at some point in life he should probably stop comparing himself to a machine - as he clicks through the articles about the fight in Berlin, about the Accords, distantly noticing that half the facts reported are misleading and the other half are just plain wrong.

He isn’t surprised. And he doesn’t really give a fuck.

It’s Bethesda that he needs to get to now, which he could have guessed if he’d used his brain for half a second. Of course they’d have transferred Jim to one of the best military facilities in the country. Not just because of his rank, though that will have been a factor, but also because - for obvious reasons - they’re very, very good at dealing with traumatic injuries and paralysis.

Sam swallows, hoping that he isn’t going to throw up. He can’t actually remember when he last ate - they did feed them, in the Raft, but he hadn’t managed to keep track of time properly in there - so he figures he’s probably safe. He grabs a few protein bars, a couple of bottles of water. Drinks, but doesn’t eat, because when he focuses on his body his stomach doesn’t feel right, and the last thing he needs is to be distracted by something as mundane as indigestion.

Thank fuck he’s already close by. Sam would get on yet another plane and fly to California if he had to, but he’s honestly not sure if he can hold himself together for that long. 

Or if he’s even allowed to fly right now. Jesus. He doesn’t regret his choice; he still thinks that the Sokovia Accords - at least in their current state - would be a terrible idea, but he really wishes he’d been better prepared for the consequences.

As if anyone could have prepared for this.

He packs a duffel bag with the essentials - change of clothes, toothbrush, phone charger. Hair clippers, because he’s spent too long in the forces to feel right with anything but a buzzcut.

And then he locks up his house again, the house he’s barely spent half an hour in, and walks away.

He tries to calm himself down on the train, but he spends the full twenty minutes on the phone with his mom, so _calm_ feels pretty far out of reach. It’s exhausting, trying to put on a front with her, hoping that if she sees through it she won’t call him out, and he hates every second of it: _I’m alright, I promise, I have to go see someone and then I’ll come straight to you, I swear, give my love to everyone, I really am fine, or I will be -_

He’s always been good at ignoring his more inconvenient reactions to things. Or - not ignoring them exactly. More turning them into something else; a joke, some self-deprecating anecdote, a funny story that only gets dark when you look at it real close. Playing them down until they really are less painful. 

You can’t feel everything, in a war. It’ll eat you up inside if you try. If you look at every enemy combatant and wonder if he’s got a wife and kids waiting for him back home, if you look up the Facebook page of the guy whose leg you couldn’t save the other week, see he’s a champion swimmer - see he _used_ to be one, if you - if you -

You _can’t_ feel everything, not the way you would back home. It’s one of the reasons Sam’s absolutely fucking certain that Steve isn’t cut out to be a soldier, not really. 

There has to be a line. It’s never an easy one to draw. Sam had found it even harder when he’d started out as pararescue. They’re the ones who never stop seeing the parts of war that people don’t talk about back home, the terror and the pain and the soldier crying over his friend’s body, the blood and guts and the total lack of any fucking glory.

But you have to draw it. That line, between empathy and indifference, you have to draw it, and you have to balance yourself on it, walk that knife edge on every single mission, crack a joke with the kid who’s bleeding out faster than you can stitch him up, give your last drop of water to the woman staring blankly at a blood-spattered wall, fire at that man who’s aiming at you even though he’s fumbling, maybe his hands wouldn’t have held still long enough to pull the trigger, you’ll never know -

You walk that line, no matter how much it cuts you, and somewhere deep inside yourself you pray that if you ever want to get out, to get back to some other kind of life, you’ll remember how to feel things the way they should be felt.

So, yeah, Sam knows how to make himself look calm. Reliable. Someone you can count on in a crisis. He’s good at that, prides himself on it, even though he knows that if he goes too far with it he risks being one of those people who don’t let themselves feel anything at all.

He’s a pretty self-aware guy, he tells himself. He’ll be able to pull back, he’ll know when he’s gone too far.

And he needs to use those skills now, needs them in a way he hasn’t since -

Don’t think about Riley. Don’t think about Riley. Don’t think about how fast you flew, how it wasn’t fast enough, the way he reached out as he - don’t think about -

Jim.

He walks through the hospital doors, tries to put on that face that tells everyone they can trust him, and freezes. Fuck. He’s forgotten all that knowledge, somehow, over the past few days of - of hell. Or, not forgotten, exactly. It’s still there, he can feel it. Just - out of reach. Like there’s a rope bridge between him and the part of his mind he needs right now, and it’s so frayed that he knows if he tries to take one single step forward every thread in it will snap, sending him falling - 

No.

Any other image than that one. Please.

God, he needs to sleep. So badly.

 _You can sleep when you’re dead,_ an echo sounds inside his brain, in a sing-song voice that makes him want to knock his head against the nearest wall.

Which would not be the best way to prove that he’s a trustworthy visitor for - presumably - the most famous patient in the hospital right now.

He clenches his teeth together and then deliberately relaxes his jaw again, repeating the motion with every set of muscle groups in his body. Then he goes up to the nearest receptionist, trying to project his counsellor persona over whatever the hell expression is on his face. 

Sam Wilson, competent veteran, VA employee, upstanding citizen with every right to be in this building.

He can do this.

“Staff Sergeant Samuel Wilson,” he says, snapping the words out the way he would with a superior officer, wondering half a second later if he’s on some watchlist, if he should even be giving his real name out right now. “Here to see Colonel Rhodes.”

“Are you a relative?” she asks, her voice kind and maybe a little anxious - he wonders what he looks like; if it’s how he feels, frantic, manic, like he hasn’t slept in days - that part’s not far from true, really - or if he’s managing to look like he belongs here, like he’s not falling apart in a thousand different ways.

He could lie. She’s white, young, looks nervous, probably hasn’t worked here all that long. If he tells her he’s Jim’s brother, she most likely won’t question it. One black guy half in tears over another, got to be related somehow, right? Except - Jim isn’t just Jim, isn’t even just Colonel Rhodes; there’s going to be a whole lot of extra security round the room War Machine is in. He fucking hopes there is, anyway. 

Still. He can try. What’s the worst they can do to him?

He strangles the laugh that tries to rise up at that thought; the last thing he wants to do is come across as hysterical. He tries to clear his throat. “I’m his -”

He breaks off. Can’t say it. Jim would want him to lie, he thinks. If it meant they could be together, or at least - at least Sam could be there, waiting for him to wake up, if he isn’t conscious right now. Maybe one day they’d even joke about it; Sam can almost hear Jim teasing him: _hey, don’t beat yourself up, Wilson, technically we’re both brothers, wasn’t even much of a lie -_

“Sir?”

She looks like her balance is tipping quickly, her kindness giving way to worry - or is that fear? God, he hadn’t meant to scare her, he just - 

_I’m his partner,_ he says inside his head, and -

“I’m his,” he says, very quietly.

And then everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ow yes I do apologise for that chapter.
> 
> Things to come:  
> -how did Sam and Rhodey get together?  
> -does anyone know about them?  
> -what happened when they disagreed about the Accords?  
> -pain and suffering  
> -but also fluff and happiness
> 
> Suggestions welcome as I literally haven't written anything past the first 2 sentences of chapter 2.
> 
> Any comments, no matter how short, are always always loved and appreciated.


	2. Beginnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this chapter is one of the flashback ones. It's basically a summary of how Sam and Jim got together in the first place. I'll probably write another fic about them at some point which will go into more detail about my headcanons surrounding their relationship, but for now it's all in this one chapter. One small note: I was originally going to write a past Sam/Riley relationship, but I decided to stick with them as friends here and explore them as romantically involved in another fic.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

* * *

* * *

**Eight months earlier.**

“I can’t believe I have Colonel Rhodes’ phone number,” Sam says, feeling like he’s walking on air - a comparison which he’s actually very qualified to make. “His _personal_ number. Pinch me.”

Steve helpfully pinches Sam in the exact spot under his ribs where he’s most ticklish, the asshole.

“Ow! Fuck off, I didn’t mean it literally.”

Steve puts his hands up, all mock-innocence that’s about as fake as his enthusiasm for good old American apple pie, which he says always tastes too sweet. “I’m sorry, Sam,” he says, in that aw-shucks voice that fools half the reporters in the country. “You know modern-day sarcasm is hard for me to understand.”

Sam grins. “I can’t believe how much the history books lied about you, Rogers. You’re so much more of a troll than I could have predicted, it’s amazing.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling as well. “They didn’t even try to find out who I really was. It’s not like I was keeping anything a secret when I grew up. I wasn’t planning on being famous, remember. Wasn’t even planning on seeing thirty.”

He says that so matter-of-factly, which just makes it way worse.

“Come on, man,” Sam says, waving his phone in Steve’s face. “I’m supposed to be in a great mood right now.”

“Okay, okay. No more stories about the good old days of whooping cough and polio.”

“Thank you,” Sam says, trying not to smile down at his phone.

“So are you going to call him?” Steve asks, nudging Sam with his shoulder. They’re in Sam’s living room, which comes with two almost-matching armchairs, and yet Steve still sits next to Sam on the couch every time he comes over.

Sam tries valiantly to ignore just how much this conversation is making him feel like he’s back in high school.

“I could do,” he says, tapping his screen so it lights back up - yep, there is it. Rhodes. Typed into his phone by the man himself, who’d not really given much of an explanation. Actually, the only thing he’d said was _in case there’s another issue with the wings,_ because that’s the only reason Steve and Sam had been visiting Stark in the first place. Rhodes had mostly just been hanging out in the workshop to see Stark - Sam still doesn’t get their friendship, but he figure it’s none of his business - but he’d ended up offering some great pointers on aerodynamics that Stark had listened to with the least amount of fuss Sam's ever heard from the guy.

“Go on,” Steve says, because he’s actually an impatient five-year-old; Sam has no fucking clue what everyone that calls him _stoic_ has been smoking in their spare time.

Well. He can admit that when Steve’s in front of a camera, he tends to give off kind of a stoic vibe, but that’s only because he’s a very awkward guy when he thinks people are paying too much attention to him.

It’s constantly hilarious to Sam that Steve is basically the opposite of what he bets most people would describe as the ideal Captain America, and yet he’s just perfect for the role despite - or maybe because of? - all that.

Sam bites his lip, playing with the idea of hitting dial in his mind. “I don’t know what I’d say though. He probably just gave me it in case there was an emergency.”

“Your phone’s already synced up with Tony’s Avengers Alert thing,” Steve points out. “So I doubt it’s that. Maybe he wants to be friends with you.”

Sam would love that to be true, but he’s not sure he wants to be that level of optimistic. Not just yet. “I guess?”

Steve looks adorably outraged at that. “Why did that sound like a question? Anyone would want to be friends with you!”

Sam laughs. “Dude, where were you in high school?” He holds one hand up. “Please don’t make me feel guilty for saying that by bringing up the whole ice thing.”

“Only if you phone Colonel Rhodes already,” Sam says, with a look that Sam can’t figure out - or maybe he just doesn’t want to try too hard, wary of what he might see there.

Why is Steve this fixated on one phone call?

“Are you kidding me? I had the - um. Never mind.”

He feels a bit awkward, all of a sudden, because he’s pretty sure that Steve won’t give a fuck about the way he’d been going to end that sentence - which had been very high-school of him, he can admit that: _I had the biggest crush on him._

“Don’t leave me hanging,” Steve says, and there’s a small smile on his face that puts Sam at ease. Almost as though Steve already knows what he’s going to say.

Sam rolls his eyes, feeling his heartrate speed up a little. This never gets easier, no matter how many times he has to do it. “Alright, fine. I was going to say I kind of had a crush on him when I was in the Air Force. Happy now?”

Steve grins. “Very,” he says, because it’s just like Sam said: he’s a troll. Then his expression turns more serious, and Sam braces himself for whatever’s coming next. “And I’m sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell me that you’re - well, whatever you are. It doesn’t bother me, I swear.”

If he looked like _that_ in the official photos, all wide-eyed and with a look that makes you feel like you’re suddenly the most important person in the world, the whole country would be on their knees for him in minutes. More than a few of them literally.

“Thanks,” Sam says, looking away from Steve’s way too intense expression for a second. “And I’m bi. Bisexual.”

“I know what bi means,” Steve says. Sam looks at him closely, trying to figure out if this is a coming out moment for more than just him. He has a lot of suspicions about Steve, but he figures that the guy’s had to come to terms with a lot of stuff already; he can let him deal with some things in his own time.

No matter how much he wants to know whether or not Steve really had been flirting with him when they’d first met.

“Well, anyway,” Sam says, when a few seconds go by without Steve volunteering any kind of revelation about his own sexuality. “I can’t just ring him. Seriously, what would I even talk about?”

Steve coughs. Or, rather it sounds a lot like the sound someone would make if they said _chicken_ at the exact same moment they had a coughing fit.

Sam narrows his eyes. “Hanging out with Romanoff has been a horrible influence on you,” he says, in a mock-stern voice that makes Steve laugh.

“Maybe I’ve been a good influence on her, then,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

“I very much doubt that,” Sam says dryly. “Alright, fuck off now.” He takes a quick breath in, lets it out slower. “I’m going to call him.”

That makes Steve’s smile take over half his face, which is a very good look on him. Sam stifles that thought in its tracks; his attraction to Steve is a very fleeting thing that comes and goes, and he’d really like it to stay that way. For the sake of both their friendship and his sanity.

Steve looks at him pointedly until Sam literally hovers his thumb over Rhodes’ number, and then he finally gets up to leave, still with that irritatingly attractive grin on. 

Sam flips him the bird, which is a waste because his back is turned. He looks back down at his phone, and then hits dial before he can second-guess himself even more.

As soon as the phone starts ringing, Sam has a moment of panic when he realises that he has absolutely no idea how Rhodes likes to be addressed. He isn’t going to call the guy Rhodey; that sounds like a Stark thing, but he’s never heard anyone call him James. 

The only way Sam’s ever referred to him in conversation is as Colonel Rhodes.

Which is fine when you’re talking _about_ someone, respect for superior officers and all that, but this is supposed to be a casual conversation. Throwing ranks in there is just going to make Sam start thinking about military roleplay, and - what the fuck, no, where did that thought even _come_ from, that really isn’t one of his kinks - and he shouldn’t be thinking about sex right now at all, oh he hates his brain so much -

“Hello? Rhodes speaking.”

Fuck.

“Ah, hi,” Sam says, wincing when his voice comes out just a little hoarser than usual. “It’s Sam. Wilson, I mean. Sam Wilson.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Can a hole in the ground just open up and swallow him already. Where are the supernatural disasters when you actually fucking need them.

“Sam! Good to hear from you.” 

Rhodes doesn’t sound like he’s faking it - _God,_ Sam would love it if his brain could just stop with the innuendo already; he’s nearly forty, not twelve.

“Yeah, just wanted to see how things were going.” Sam pauses. There’s no graceful way to say it, not really. “Hey, I have to ask – do you go by Rhodey?”

That gets him a deep laugh, which absolutely does not make Sam’s heart feel funny for a second. He’s a trained paramedic, that would be impossible. And also embarrassing. “No, no,” Rhodes says, still sounding amused. “That's just Tony. And Pepper, sometimes. I'm Jim.”

“Oh, thank god,” Sam says, before realising how that sounds and blushing fiercely - thank fuck he’s on the phone. “Not that – I would have called you Rhodey, obviously! It just - Jim seems more you.”

 _More you._ What the hell. That doesn’t even make sense. 

Pull yourself together, Wilson.

“Ask Happy Hogan about how he got his nickname sometime,” Jim says. “Anyway, Rhodey is way better than the other name Tony planned on calling me by, trust me.”

“Don’t just leave me hanging, man, come on,” Sam says after a couple of seconds go by, fully aware that he’s basically using Steve’s line. 

Jim laughs again. It’s a sound that’s rapidly becoming one of Sam’s favourite things to hear. “Don’t ever google my middle name, is all I’m saying.”

Sam immediately makes a mental note to do just that as soon as this conversation is over.

“Alright, alright,” he says, and he only panics a very small amount when he realises he’s flirting and has absolutely no idea how to stop. “So, what have you been up to lately? Other than helping me fly, I mean.” He says the last line - god, it’s definitely a line, he isn’t even going to try to convince himself otherwise - with a smirk on his face that he bets carries over to his voice.

Jesus, he hopes this doesn’t backfire on him.

Twenty minutes later, Sam hangs up, with a - probably - dazed look on his face and an invitation to meet up for a drink and talk shop next week.

Wow.

He’s in trouble. And not only because he might have very slightly exaggerated his engineering know-how to Jim. 

No, it’s because he can already feel the tiny crush he admits to having deepening, in a way that isn’t going to end up anywhere but on his couch with two pints of ice cream and a Netflix queue of trashy romance movies.

It hadn’t been an issue before. Honestly, Sam would defy anyone in the Air Force - well, anyone attracted to men, he guesses - to not have a small thing for Colonel Rhodes. 

But now? After the way he hadn’t been able to stop himself from flirting, just a little, after the way he’d kept getting distracted by wondering if maybe Jim was answering him in kind?

Yeah, he’s in trouble.

His phone buzzes in his hand, and he almost drops it with how fast he looks at the screen.

It’s Steve, not Jim, and he refuses to acknowledge the little flash of disappointment he gets at seeing the name. It’s a short message: **???? :D**

He rolls his eyes and quickly types out a reply. 

**We’re meeting up in a few days and I’m panicking already happy now?**

**:D :D :D** is all Steve sends back, because apparently he’s not only a troll, he’s also decided to be a very fucking unhelpful one.

Sam only has to think for a couple of seconds before typing his next message. **I’m telling TMZ about the time you tripped over your own feet and motorboated Thor if you don’t actually give me some advice here.**

Steve doesn’t reply straightaway, so Sam occupies himself with thinking about what he should wear to meet Jim, and then promptly occupies himself with attempting to think about literally anything else, because that’s the kind of question you ask yourself when you’re going on a date, which he very much is not.

Steve finally replies, and Sam knows exactly why it had taken him so long when he reads the message.

**SaMeul I do not KNow wht u r tlkin AbOuT I am a AMERIKAN IKON I cud neV3R.**

Sam nearly chokes, he’s laughing so hard. And he totally deserves that, after the time he mentioned being surprised Steve had picked up texting so quickly. He can admit when he was wrong, alright. 

Sam’s phone buzzes again before he hits reply. Steve’s message is blank, except for one little angel-with-a-halo emoji.

 **I curse the day Nat showed you how to use those things,** Sam sends, still feeling almost high with how good a mood he’s in right now.

Kind of sad that it’s so rare for him to be quite this happy that he has to compare it to drugs, but whatever. Not everything has to involve a moment of self-reflection. Sometimes you just want to be happy in an uncomplicated way, even if you doubt it’ll last that long.

Steve sends a series of emojis involving birds and hearts.

 **Subtle,** Sam texts back, but secretly he’s glad that Steve feels like he can tease him about this. So much of their friendship has been high-stakes and filled with tension, from the moment Steve and Natasha had shown up at his door. He’d helped Steve search various US locations for Barnes over the last year, though he’d drawn the line when Steve had decided to switch his focus to Europe for no apparent reason.

And then he’d been here when Steve had realised that if Barnes didn’t want to be found, the chances that anyone could find him were slim to nonexistent, and had come back to DC with his metaphorical tail between his legs.

Or, no. Sam’s pretty sure that Steve had realised that almost immediately after waking up in hospital after being dragged out of the Potomac by mysterious forces. 

When Steve had decided to acknowledge that realisation, then.

So, yeah. It’s nice to have something to talk to Steve about that doesn’t involve any amount of guilt for either of them. It’s a small bar to have to clear, sure, and they should probably be worrying about that at some point.

But right now he doesn’t really care. It’s still nice. And he has a - not a date - a meet-up with Rhodes - with _Jim_ in a few days.

Life is going pretty good, he thinks to himself, laughing at the poop emoji Steve sends him next.

* * *

* * *

Sam taps his fingers against his thigh as he waits outside the coffee shop. Not in a nervous way, just as a distraction from - okay, yeah, he’s pretty nervous right now.

Way more so than he’d been on most of his first dates, actually, which isn’t a thought he needs right now.

And this isn’t a date. It’s a casual meet-up, no different from when he hangs out with Steve.

Maybe Steve's a bad example. He still feels like they end up accidentally flirting with each other whenever they're together, just a bit. When he hangs out with his co-workers from the VA, then.

He relaxes at least a bit when he sees Jim walking towards him. Not that much, though, because he feels like he keeps forgetting just how attractive the guy is.

“Was it Bear?” Sam asks as soon as Jim’s in earshot. 

“Hello to you too,” Jim says dryly. “Was what bear?” 

“Tony’s other nickname for you.”

Jim just looks at him. “You googled my middle name, didn’t you.”

“I kind of had to after that, come on.” Sam laughs, feeling that all his nerves vanished the second they actually started talking. “It could have been worse! Probably. Rupert the Bear is a classic.”

“Classic racist,” Jim mutters, and Sam decides to concede the point, because he hasn’t actually read any Rupert comics since about first grade but he’s pretty sure he remembers a Chinese character called Ping-Pong.

“I swear I won’t bring it up again,” he says, still smiling. “I’ll even buy your coffee, how about that?”

They fall into conversation so easily, and a small part of Sam wants to give credit to the fact that they have a fair amount in common, but he knows it can’t be that - or not only that. He’s met so many veterans, as well as a lot of active service personnel, and while he’s always been good at getting them to relax for at least a brief conversation, this is something different.

He just - they just _click,_ somehow, and he wishes he had more of an explanation for it than that.

“Hey, you want to go for a drink sometime?” Jim asks, after two hours have gone past and they’re starting to get a few side-eyes from the baristas, who are probably about five minutes away from getting the mop and bucket out as a deliberately unsubtle attempt at pointing out that the coffee shop closes in fifteen. Sam’s worked his fair share of service jobs; he knows those looks.

Sam looks very pointedly at his empty cup. “Again? Sure.”

Like hell he’s going to turn down an offer to spend more time with Jim. This has been one of the best afternoons he can remember having for a long time. 

Jim looks - okay, if Sam didn’t know better, he’d say Jim looks unsure. That can’t be right, though? Why would he be anxious about - oh. _Oh._

“When you say go for a drink,” Sam says slowly, trying to ignore the way his heartrate is picking up slightly. “You mean - ah.”

He breaks off, unable to complete that sentence out loud.

_You mean like a date?_

“I mean,” Jim repeats, looking mildly embarrassed. 

“I’d love to,” Sam says instantly, even though an actual question hasn’t actually been voiced yet.

If he’s wrong, he can resign himself to a bit of humiliation and maybe an evening of drinking that fancy whisky Stark got for Steve and that Steve refuses to open - he claims it'd be a waste since he can’t actually feel the effects.

But as he looks at the slow smile spreading across Jim’s face, Sam really doesn’t think he’s wrong.

* * *

* * *

“Hey there,” Sam says, leaning in to give Jim a quick kiss that rapidly ends up deepening. 

He pulls away after a minute or so, because they hadn’t been planning on meeting up tonight; Jim had messaged an hour ago to ask if he could come round, which probably means he has something on his mind other than sex.

Sam can’t imagine Jim as the kind of person to swing by just for a booty call, though he’d be more than happy to be proved wrong.

He leads the way into the living room, taking a quick detour into the kitchen to grab a couple of bottles of beer out of the fridge. They sit down on the couch in silence, which isn’t that unusual for them. Jim’s not taciturn, exactly, but he’s not one of those people who feels like they need to fill every moment of quiet with some comment or observation.

He flips the cap off one beer with the edge of the coffee table - it’s seen worse; Steve once stabbed an inch-deep hole into it with a biro after reading a particularly detailed file on the methods used to keep the Winter Soldier under control - and passes it to Jim, then does the same with his.

“So,” he says, keeping his voice casual. “What’s up?”

“We should talk,” Jim says, and Sam grips the neck of the bottle tighter for just a second, before deliberately relaxing his hand and taking a sip of his beer - well, what starts out as a sip and ends with him lowering it half-empty.

“Okay,” he says, still trying to keep his voice light. He knows he’s not doing a good job of it this time, though. “Got to say, I thought things were going pretty well.”

He’s not going to start crying, or anything, but he can’t lie to himself: he’s disappointed. They’ve been on more than a few official dates, and the last two had ended in - well, in some very satisfactory mutual orgasms, to put it discreetly. They aren’t boyfriends, or partners, or - or whatever the best term would be; Sam hasn’t actually figured out his preference yet - but they _are_ something.

Or he’d thought so, at least, up until about a minute ago.

Jim frowns. “What? No, I'm not – I’m not breaking up with you, Sam.”

Oh. Thank fuck for that.

Sam sighs, very loudly. “Could you maybe have led with that? Instead of sitting down all serious and going 'we need to talk.'”

“Sorry,” Jim says, rubbing the back of his neck in that way he always does when he’s feeling a bit unsure about something. Sam thinks it’s fucking cute, and is determined to never, ever mention that, in case it makes Jim feel self-conscious.

Sam decides not to be annoyed at Jim for making him think the worst for a few seconds. “No worries,” he says. “What _did_ you want to say, before I derailed it by panicking?”

Jim doesn’t answer at first. Now that Sam’s paying attention, he does look like there’s something on his mind. 

“Hey, you okay?” Sam asks, before he can think it through. 

“What? I’m fine, yeah. I just -”

Jim falls silent again. He’s not taken a drink yet; he’s just picking at the label on his beer bottle, methodically tearing little shreds from it and crumpling them into a ball.

Which is not exactly behaviour of someone who’s _fine,_ in Sam’s personal opinion.

“Just say it,” he says gently. “Whatever it is. It’ll be easier once you’ve said it.”

Jim glances at him for a moment. “Will it?” Sam can’t read his expression at all. “No, you’re right. The thing is - I really like you, Sam. In a way I’d given up on by now, if I’m being honest.”

Sam smiles at that, though he knows it won’t be a purely happy one. 

“And I don’t want to sound arrogant,” Jim continues slowly, not meeting Sam’s eyes. “But, well. I’m not exactly an unimportant figure in the military. And then there’s War Machine, and the Avengers, and all the media attention that surrounds Tony every time he sneezes in the wrong direction.”

Sam keeps his gaze steady and hopefully non-judgemental. He’s pretty sure he knows exactly what Jim’s building up to, but he wants to let him say it in his own words.

“I can’t come out,” Jim goes on, confirming Sam’s suspicions. “Or - I could, obviously. I know Eric Fanning pretty well, he’s a great guy. And he’s not had a bad time of it so far. But I’m juggling a lot of things right now, Sam. I’m advisor on two Pentagon projects that I’m not supposed to be talking about. I’m technically always on active duty as War Machine; they can call me up any time, though they’ve said they want to keep me in the States. And then there’s my engineering, which is kind of by the wayside right now, and there’s Tony - I hope he doesn’t get into trouble again, but I’m not ruling it out. Ultron was a nightmare. We're going to be seeing the fallout from that for a long time.” He sighs, and finally looks up at Sam. “And now there’s you. I’m not putting you last because you’re not as much of a priority. The opposite, really.” He clears his throat. “So. This is just - I wanted us to be on the same page. And if you want us to stop seeing each other, I’ll, well. I’d understand.”

Sam doesn’t answer immediately. He wants to be certain that he’s making this decision for himself, and that it’s one he can live with for a long time.

Then he gets up and sits next to Jim, taking his beer from him gently and setting it with his on the table. 

Jim’s not meeting his eyes again. Sam takes his hand, links their fingers together. “I don’t,” he says, clear and simple. “I want us to keep - well. Keep doing whatever we’re doing.” They haven’t exactly defined it yet, but he knows it isn’t casual, not for either of them.

“You’re sure?”

Jim might ask again, Sam knows that, and he reminds himself not to mind if that turns out to be the case.

“I’m sure,” he says, trying to sound as far from hesitant as he can.

Jim looks sort of wary, in a way that makes Sam’s heart ache. “What about your family? Your friends?”

“I’ll figure that out as we go along. They don’t know anything yet.” Or - almost none of them do, at least. “Steve knows we’ve been hanging out,” he says, knowing that he’s kind of understating the actual situation; Steve definitely knows about Sam’s more-than-friendly feelings towards Jim, but it’s not like he has confirmation of it being mutual. “But I’ll just tell him we’re friends, if he asks.” He will ask, Sam knows that, and he isn’t exactly looking forward to that conversation. But Steve being a little sad on his behalf for a while is a small price to pay.

“I’m not making this decision lightly,” Sam says, frowning at their still-clasped hands. “I’d thought it most of the way through already, back when you first asked me out.”

Jim sighs, and Sam hopes he isn’t imagining the hint of relief in the sound. “Alright. You always were smart, Wilson,” he says, sounding sort of rueful and - wait. Always?

“We haven’t even known each other that long,” Sam says cautiously, not wanting to read too much into this - seriously, though, always?

Jim smiles. Sam wishes he smiled more often; it doesn't change him, exactly, but it lights his face in a way that Sam privately thinks makes him even more attractive, if that's even possible . “You thought I didn’t remember you? Cadet Wilson, the kid who got so mouthy about DADT with one of his friends that I overheard him from a hundred yards away? I told you to pipe down and get out of the damn forces if you wanted to be all out and proud, if I recall. Got your name from your CO later; he said you were one of the most promising recruits he’d had in years.”

Sam knows he’s blushing right now. Hopefully Jim can’t tell. “I can’t believe you remember,” he says. “And you never said anything! That was years ago, God, you were - what, Captain?”

Jim nods, looking very smug. “And only just, at that. I was on a tour of a few bases, giving advice on how to integrate UAVs. You stood out.”

“You can’t blame me for being pissed at having to hide,” Sam says, feeling kind of defensive. He regrets saying it less than a second later, because _having to hide_ \- that’s exactly what he and Jim have just been discussing, and he really doesn’t want to make him feel guilty.

Sam’s choices are his own; no-one else gets to take them on. Maybe they’ll end up an anchor, maybe a burden. Doesn’t matter either way; they’re his to carry.

“I joined up a decade before you, Sam,” Jim says, raising one eyebrow. “Don’t ask, don’t tell - that was a lifesaver to me. I remember the first time I heard someone talking about it like it was oppressive, I didn’t even get what they meant.”

Sam winces. “Sorry,” he says, a reflex that doesn’t get any less true when he actually thinks about what Jim’s saying. “I forget how fast everything changed, back then. Or - still is changing, I guess. You heard they’re talking about trans people being allowed to serve openly now?”

“I’m all in favour,” Jim says easily. “Hoping it’s going to be announced to the public some time next year.”

He looks like there’s something still on his mind. “You alright?” Sam asks, hoping he doesn’t sound like he’s putting any kind of pressure on Jim to answer.

This things they’re doing, it might be pretty new still, but Sam can already tell without a doubt that he’s going to be so mad at himself if he fucks it up.

Jim still looks far away. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just - that guy you were arguing with, back then,” he says, glancing at Sam with clear apology in his eyes. “Your CO gave me his name, as well. I remember seeing both of you on a list for the EXO-7 project, years later. I was asked to consult, you know? Didn’t sign on, in the end, but I kept my eye on it.”

Oh.

“You know, then,” Sam says, feeling - heavy, all of a sudden, heavy like that moment he touches ground after he’s been flying.

“That you lost someone? I would have known that either way.”

Sam closes his eyes for a second. “Yeah,” he says, and. “Yeah, I lost him. Riley.”

He doesn’t say his name all that often, though he ends up thinking about him at least once a day.

“Were you two -”

Jim breaks off, shaking his head. “Sorry,” he says. “Not my business.”

“No,” Sam says, but he’s answering the implied question, not agreeing with Jim’s last few words. “No, we were - it was how I’d always imagined having a brother would be. Sounds weird, I guess. Riley was from Georgia, for fuck’s sake. He said his dad used to tell him about the good old days of segregated buses, Christ. We argued so much for the first couple years we knew each other. They kept pairing us up, though, ‘cause we could damn near read each other’s minds in the field. Best team in the squad when we were on a mission, hated his guts every other second of the day.”

Fuck, but it’s been a while since he’s talked about Riley. His therapist’s heard all his best stories before, and he only sees her every month now, just to check in. 

He hasn’t properly talked about him since the early days of his friendship with Steve, actually, and every one of those conversations had been fraught in a way that still makes him uncomfortable to think about - raw, like holding a wound open that desperately wants to knit itself closed.

Hovering under the surface of every story had been the knowledge that Steve’s own best friend had fallen, too. 

And his had returned.

Sam swallows; his throat feels tight. He doesn’t think he’s close to tears, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’s started crying without any warning from his body.

“Sorry,” he says, realising that it’s been too long since he said anything.

Jim just pulls him gently, moving himself sideways until they’re both half-lying along the couch, Sam leaning back against Jim’s chest. 

“Don’t say sorry for that,” Jim says quietly, wrapping his arms around Sam. “You can talk about him with me, if you want to. How did you even get to be friends, after that start?”

Sam folds his hands around Jim’s, and smiles, even though no-one can see his face right now. “Well,” he says, finding it easy as anything to slip back into the memory. “That involved me being trapped under half a Humvee, a rope that wasn’t quite long enough, and a whole lot of reckless decisions on Riley’s part.”

They talk for hours that feel like minutes, swap stories that would take Sam days to figure out how to tell someone else. He hasn’t felt like this in - maybe ever, he thinks, turning it over in the back of his mind, trying to remember a time when he’d been this at ease with another person, had felt like they would understand everything he was saying even if he stopped talking out loud.

If he has to keep it a secret in order to - well, to keep it, then that’s barely even a sacrifice.

And if it does count as one, he hadn’t been lying before.

This is more than worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback and concrit always welcome. 
> 
> Couple of notes: Rhodey's full name is James Rupert Rhodes. Rupert the Bear comics/books would have been a childhood classic for many people of a certain generation; there is a character called Pong-Ping the Pekingese. And 'UAVs' stands for [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle) basically drones and similar things, the use of which has been on the rise in the US military since the 90s. Rhodey, as an Air Force officer with at least one engineering degree, would be a pretty good candidate for working with them I think. [Eric Fanning](http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/02/18/carter-selects-fanning-as-first-openly-gay-pentagon-chief-of.html) is the first openly gay United States Secretary of the Army, though at the time of this flashback he would have been Acting Undersecretary. And finally, trans people will be able to serve openly in the US military; the [announcement](http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/30/politics/transgender-ban-lifted-us-military/) was made in June 2016.


	3. Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m fine,” Sam says, and he thinks it even sounds halfway to convincing until he looks up again and sees Jim’s expression.
> 
> Jim lets the silence hang in the air after the lie. Everything feels heavy, weighed down, Sam especially, and he doesn’t know how to act from here; if he should be talking as though they’d never fought, as though none of this had ever happened - impossible - or if he should be trying to deal with their new reality, asking detailed questions about what the future’s going to hold for Jim, now that - now that - 
> 
> He can’t do that either, he realises. Not now.
> 
> Sam hates feeling useless with a viciousness that still startles him, every time he thinks it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Managed to finish this before Christmas! Not that this is cute holidays fluff, if you want that you might like my Sam/Steve/Bucky [Christmas fic.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8874169) This is more angst, and it's pretty much all unresolved in this chapter. Sorry <3
> 
> Additional tag has been added for suicidal thoughts, nothing graphic but please don't feel you should read if you have any doubts! My tumblr's the same url if you want to ask for more clarification.

* * *

* * *

Sam wakes up slowly. And in a lot of pain. It’s muffled; he guesses he’s been given something for it, but he’s been a soldier for too long to not be able to tell when his body’s in pain.

Mostly his head, he thinks, and he tries to turn it to find out for sure.

“He’s awake! Get the doctor.”

Oh. He’s in hospital. Some part of him had already known that, he realises a second later. It’s the smell; it’s hard to mistake it for anything else.

It doesn’t take him long to remember exactly _why_ he’d come to this particular hospital, and he hears his heartrate monitor helpfully beeping faster as he starts thinking about Jim.

He blinks his eyes fully open, to see a doctor entering the room. Closely followed by - what the actual hell - 

“Ms Potts, if you could wait here for a moment,” the doctor says firmly. “Just while I check he’s not still concussed.”

“I’m not concussed,” Sam tries to say, and then panics when the words definitely don’t come out the way they’d been supposed to.

He can’t - he’s wasting time; how long has he been out, is Jim alright - does he know Sam’s here, why the _fuck_ is Pepper Potts in his room?

He doesn’t have time to be concussed, for fuck’s sake.

“That’s what I’m here to determine, Mr Wilson,” the doctor points out, with the iron patience that Sam’s heard from so many medics before. Including himself, he’s pretty sure.

He goes through the usual tests, trying not to rush them, because he knows firsthand how annoying it is to be looking after someone who’s determined to jump back up as soon as humanly possible.

He really does want to get up, though.

He needs to.

“You’ll be just fine,” is the eventual verdict. The doctor - Sam tries to focus on her nametag, but can’t quite manage it - stands up again, scribbling a few notes into her chart. “You probably passed out due to exhaustion. And maybe hunger. When was the last time you ate?”

He passed out? “Few hours ago,” he tries, knowing that she doesn’t believe him for a second. Which is fair enough; he doesn’t really believe himself. Especially since he has no idea what time it is right now, and he’s actually a little fuzzy on the date when he thinks about it.

“I’ll let you have a few minutes to talk,” the doctor says, and motions for the nurse to follow her as she leaves the room.

Which leaves just the two of them. Sam and Pepper Potts.

“This is awkward,” he mutters, not really feeling like censoring himself the way he usually would.

He knows why she’s here, anyway. To tell him that she’s so sorry, but he really can’t be allowed in to see Jim. She’s sure he’ll understand, and all that. 

So, yeah, he’s not exactly feeling well-disposed to her right now.

“Well, I’ve spent the past few days comforting my ex-partner because his best friend has been seriously injured and is facing a permanent physical disability,” Pepper says sharply. “Awkward is one word for it, I suppose.”

Sam moves himself until he’s sitting up as straight as he can manage to in a hospital bed, and tries to make his face look like it usually does.

He highly doubts he’s succeeding, but maybe that’ll work in his favour and make Pepper take pity on him.

He’s just realised two things. One, other than Jim and Tony, she’s probably the person who knows most about Jim’s condition outside of his doctors, and two, Pepper isn’t a doctor, so isn’t bound by patient confidentiality regulations.

He’s suddenly feeling a lot more like he wants to get on her good side.

“I’m sorry,” he says, as sincerely as he can. “Please, can you tell me how he’s doing?”

Pepper sighs, and takes a seat in the very uncomfortable plastic chair next to his bed. Sam hasn’t actually sat in that specific chair, obviously, but all plastic chairs next to hospital beds are uncomfortable in his experience.

“He’ll definitely be paralysed for life,” she says bluntly, and Sam tries very, very hard to look like he isn’t about to start crying. “They still aren’t sure to what extent. His lower legs -”

She breaks off, shaking her head. “Sorry,” she says, looking down at her hands. “He may regain some feeling in his upper legs and hips. A lot is still - uncertain right now.”

That’s one hell of an understatement.

“Thank you for telling me,” Sam says numbly. 

She looks at him again, and he can see a kindness in her eyes that he wants to turn away from. “He’ll be alright,” she says, and he wonders who she’s trying to convince: him or herself. “He’s got a long way to go, but Tony’s already got plans for helping him walk again.”

Sam closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to think about Tony right now. “Oh. That’s good.”

“And of course all his family are with him.”

“That’s good,” Sam repeats, feeling like a complete idiot.

Of course Jim’s family are here. Where the fuck else would they be? 

He’d been so focused on getting here, on how he’d convince Tony to let him in to see Jim, that he hadn’t even thought about the most obvious obstacle of all.

Jim’s family have no fucking clue Sam exists.

“Are you alright?” Pepper asks, sounding honestly concerned. “It was so kind of you, to come here to see him. Especially after - after what you’ve been through,” she continues, and Sam knows that she knows Tony had played more than a small part in the hell Sam’s been living in recently.

“I’m just fine,” Sam says, and his voice holds nothing but defeat.

He could try to visit anyway. He’s a co-worker, of sorts, and they’d been friends before they started dating. Jim’s family might not even question his right to be there.

But - he still doesn’t feel like he’s in full control of his mind right now. What if he walked in, saw Jim lying there, and his face gave him away instantly? What if Jim’s family could see all his emotions at one glance?

He can’t risk that.

Jim’s been through enough without adding that kind of betrayal - accidental or not - to the list.

“Tony and I did wonder why you were on the visitors list, when none of the other Avengers were,” Pepper says thoughtfully, and _shit,_ Sam needs to cut off that line of inquiry before it goes any further. He doesn’t know Pepper personally, but he knows enough about her to be fully aware that she’s very good at reading people, and he’ll be damned if he fucks up Jim’s life any more than he already has.

“Rhodes probably knew I’d want to apologise,” he says, as matter-of-fact as he can manage right now. “The blast was - was meant for me, after all.”

God, he hopes he doesn’t _look_ like his world refuses to stop falling apart around him, because that’s sure as hell how he feels.

“I’m so sick of hearing people twist logic around so they can blame themselves,” Pepper says firmly. “It wasn’t even slightly your fault, Sam. And Rhodey doesn’t think so either. He asked after you yesterday, actually.”

He did?

“He did?”

“He was very angry when he heard about the Raft.” From the look on Pepper’s face, Sam feels like that might be an understatement. 

He doesn’t really feel like getting into his whole illegal internment in a supermax underwater prison with Pepper Potts though, so he just shrugs. 

“I should probably get going,” he says, for lack of anything better to say. “My mom’s going to murder me if I don’t make it to her place for dinner.”

“I’m sure she’ll be very relieved to see you,” Pepper says, and that gentleness that Sam hates so much is back in her voice. “But Sam, if you want to see Rhodey alone for a few minutes first, I can explain that to his family.”

Sam just blinks at her for a second. That had been the absolute last offer he’d been expecting. He suppresses the panic that tries to start screaming at him inside his head - does she _know?_ Is that why she’s being so - so kind?

He can’t refuse, though. No matter what comes from it, when faced with this simple choice, there’s no fucking way he could make himself turn it down.

He’d get down on his knees and beg if it meant he could be face to face with Jim right now, and he doesn’t know if he’s ashamed or proud or neither to admit it, even to himself.

“Yeah,” he says, voice rough and hands trembling under the sheets. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He clenches his hands into fists before he stands up. He has to move slowly; he can tell that if he straightens up too fast he’ll be too light-headed to walk, and he needs to look strong right now.

At least no-one had undressed him and put him in a hospital gown. Small mercies. He doesn’t feel like he’s got a whole lot of dignity right now; he’d like to hold onto the few scraps left.

“Alright,” Pepper says, sounding a little more uncertain as she watches Sam try to toe his feet back into his shoes. “Follow me?”

Sam would love to pretend that she’s walking at a snail’s pace because of her heels, but he isn’t going to lie to himself; she’s clearly worried that he’s about to keel over again.

He isn’t. He fixes his gaze on the back of her head and puts one foot in front of the other. Sheer fucking willpower has been the only thing keeping him going more than once - hell, he’d apprehended Khalid Khandil, hadn’t he, even though he’d been almost desperate for another RPG to find its aim by the end - and he’ll be damned if it doesn’t come through for him again.

He’s so focused on walking that he almost doesn’t notice when Pepper stops. His situational awareness has been shot to pieces by the events of the last few days. 

He decides not to laugh at that particular metaphor, even silently.

And then he sees the guards outside the hospital room stepping aside, and the door swings open, and Sam isn’t sure laughter has ever, ever been further from his mind.

“Wait here,” Pepper says firmly. “I’ll talk to his family for a moment.”

Sam nods mutely, even though her back is still turned to him anyway.

Her order won’t be a hard one to follow. He feels like his feet have been rooted into the ground. He isn’t sure he could move anything right now; even the sound of his heart thrumming in his ears and the rise and fall of his chest seems overwhelming.

He hadn’t seen Jim when the door opened. But the amount of machines around the bed had been terrifying enough without seeing the person in the middle of them.

God. How did this happen?

Then a small line of people start to leave the room. A middle-aged man - Jim doesn’t have a brother; maybe a cousin? Sam should know these things, Jesus. Then a young woman who looks barely twenty, and who Sam thinks is Jim’s sister’s daughter. 

And finally, a couple that must be Jim’s parents. Sam should look away from them, he knows he should; he’s still so scared he’s going to accidentally out Jim.

They all look at Sam curiously. He tries to seem normal, or some definition of it at least, opens his mouth, to say - what?

What could he possibly say, to these people who have loved Jim so much longer than he has?

There’s one word that feels like it’s burning the inside of his mouth with the effort it takes to hold it in. 

_Sorry._

“Sergeant Wilson,” Pepper says briskly, leaving the room behind Jim’s parents. He doesn’t correct her on his rank. “You have half-an-hour.” She turns to Jim’s family, and her expression immediately softens. “If you follow me,” she says to them. “I borrowed a small office just up the hall. There’s a few bits to eat and drink, if you need anything.”

Sam’s already versed enough in Pepper Potts-speak to know that there’s probably enough food for a football team. From the expressions on Jim’s family’s faces, it looks like they have her sussed as well.

“What did you say your name was again?” Jim’s mom asks, and Sam feels his whole body tense up yet again when he realises she’s looking right at him. She’s small, can’t be more than a few inches over five feet. Her hair is grey-white, and she’s wearing a flowery dress with a nice - though creased - jacket over it - the sort of outfit that someone might wear to church, except if they ended up keeping the jacket out for a few days longer than they’d been expecting to.

She looks like the last person on earth who might be a threat to him.

If only his fucking brain would get on board with that logic.

“Staff Sergeant Sam Wilson, ma’am,” he says, reverting to formality out of sheer panic. “I’m -”

He has to say it. They must already know; they’ll have asked for every detail they can legally get their hands on, and probably a few more. 

He knows his family would have.

“I’m the Falcon,” he says, and he knows they hear the unspoken words, the words that haven’t stopped running through the back of his mind for days. 

_I’m part of the reason your son is lying in that bed right now._

“Is that right,” Jim’s mom says, her eyes piercing and her tone unreadable, especially when Sam’s feeling this disoriented. “Well. It’s nice to meet you, Sam Wilson. I’ll be seeing you again, I’m sure.”

Sam tries not to read too much into that. He swallows down his questions - he has too many of them right now to get them all straight in his head - and just nods. “Nice to meet you too,” he manages to say, and then Jim’s dad is looking at him too, in a way that seems almost - friendly, and what the hell is going on right now?

“C’mon,” the young woman says. “I’m hoping Stark forked out for a Krispy Kreme delivery again.” She waves quickly at Sam, and then falls into step with Pepper, the rest of the little group following along.

One of the guards pushes the door open, holding it until Sam manages to make his legs move and steps through. It swings shut behind him, with an almost-silent click.

Sam forces himself to look up.

Jim’s looking right back at him.

 _If you pass out right now I will never fucking forgive you,_ Sam tells his brain sternly, and he takes another step.

He sits down on the chair by Jim’s bed. It isn’t actually uncomfortable. Maybe Tony paid someone an obscene amount of money to upgrade them.

Or maybe Sam’s body is just as numb as his mind feels right now.

“Hey,” he says softly - or, rather, tries to say. He clears his throat, tries again. “Hey, Jim.”

Better. He hadn’t sounded like he was half a corpse, this time. He hopes.

Jim looks so, so tired. 

Sam hasn’t yet found the courage to look at anything but Jim’s face. Out of the corner of his eye he can see enough to make him terrified all over again; Jim’s legs are elevated, covered by a sheet, a few tubes and wires trailing out from underneath.

“Hey,” Jim says, and if Sam couldn’t see his eyes right now he’d have said that Jim had sounded almost like his usual self. 

Sam feels his hand twitching, a nervous little jerk of muscle every few heartbeats, and he knows it’s because everything in him wants to reach out right now.

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t know if he has the right to.

“How -”

He stops. Clears his throat again. 

He can’t ask that, Jesus. _How are you?_ It’s pretty fucking obvious what the answer to that would be right now.

“I’m not sure why Ms Potts let me in,” he says instead. His voice is as wooden as the rest of him feels - as lifeless.

Jim blinks at him. “Because she’s smart as hell?” 

Sam closes his eyes for a second, opens them. Looks down at where his hands are twisting together in his lap, because he can’t meet Jim’s gaze. 

This isn’t the conversation they should be having. Another time, it might have been their priority - someone knows about them, or at least suspects.

But now - 

They’re on a clock. Sam’s so conscious of time passing, even as he doesn’t know how fast or slow it’s ticking by. Maybe he’s dissociating again. It’s happened before, though not for a long while. Staring into the distance until he blinks and sees two hours have passed as though they were seconds.

Wait. How does he know it’s been a while since it happened? What can he remember about the Raft? It’s not like there was anything in there to make one moment distinct from another, not really. Gray walls, gray light. 

Silence.

He could have zoned out for an entire day and never noticed.

“Sam?”

Jim sounds - worried. And that’s so fucked up, Christ. Jim shouldn’t be the anxious one right now. Sam will never forgive himself if he gives Jim yet another burden to carry.

“I’m fine,” Sam says, and he thinks it even sounds halfway to convincing until he looks up again and sees Jim’s expression.

Jim lets the silence hang in the air after the lie. Everything feels heavy, weighed down, Sam especially, and he doesn’t know how to act from here; if he should be talking as though they’d never fought, as though none of this had ever happened - impossible - or if he should be trying to deal with their new reality, asking detailed questions about what the future’s going to hold for Jim, now that - now that - 

He can’t do that either, he realises. Not now.

Sam hates feeling useless with a viciousness that still startles him, every time he thinks it.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, flinching from the echo of the words as soon as they leave him - god, he hadn’t meant to say that, not now, not when Jim’s still -

“Sorry,” he says again, shaking his head roughly, apologising for his apology and feeling so fucking fucked-up and tongue-tied; he doesn’t even want to meet Jim’s eyes right now, doesn’t want to know what he’d see there - pity?

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jim says, tired and guarded, and Sam feels like he wants to bury himself, deep down, where no-one can hear him screaming.

It had just been him and Riley, in the air. The RPG had been fired from the ground. It had blasted straight through one wing - a fucking anti-tank weapon, Jesus, such fucking overkill - and Sam’s no stranger to gallows humour; he means that fucking literally - and sent Riley spinning, jerking around in midair even as he -

Fell.

Sam had flown so fast.

And then it had just been him, hovering in the air, alone with the blank emptiness of the sky.

And of his mind.

“Not - no,” he says, because he’s come this far, and he isn’t sure if it would be worse to keep going now or to let himself fall silent. “I meant for - for what I said to you. Before.”

He’d screamed out so loud as Riley fell that he’d scared himself. Any sound always feels too loud after an explosion, even your own heartbeat drumming in your ears. 

_Before you fell,_ he says to Jim, inside his head. _Before I watched you fall._

Sam can’t remember if Riley had been crying out as well. He thinks so, but that could be the echo of his own scream - it still rings in his ears. Especially at night, when Sam’s mind decides to amplify his every thought; as if in reaction to the stillness of the world outside.

“Alright,” Jim says, which Sam knows doesn’t quite mean _it’s alright._

Jim’s spent a lifetime concealing different parts of himself from different people. It makes him careful, with his words and even - he’d told Sam this, very quietly, after they’d fucked for the first time - with his thoughts.

 _I used to hope it would go away, if I didn’t think about it,_ he’d said, and Sam’s heart had ached, both at the words themselves and at the resignation he’d heard in Jim’s voice.

He almost reaches out one of his hands - Jim’s are just lying there, over the sheets, what if he’s cold? Sam’s body never quite relearned how to regulate temperature properly again, not after the contrasts when he’d been deployed. One tour he’d spent three months in the searing heat of Bagram before being assigned to some godawful training exercise in the Hindu Kush, where all he remembers learning was how to stop himself from breathing too deeply, so that the cold wouldn’t creep into every cell of his body.

That’s the kind of thing he used to be able to share with Jim, who would give him a commiserating little smile and then - not always, but more often not - share some story of his own.

Sam wonders what things will be like now. If they’ll ever be able to act the way they used to around each other, comfortable and sure.

He doesn’t reach out.

“How’s Steve?” Jim asks, into the silence. 

Sam doesn’t answer straightaway, partly because it hadn’t been a question he’d been expecting to hear, partly because he’s still trying to get his thoughts to stay on one track.

“He’s -”

Sam stops. Swallows down the words he’d been about to say - _he’s in Wakanda, with Bucky_ \- because what if - what if Jim tells Tony?

Fuck.

At least he’s feeling something again, Sam thinks with bitterness. Even if that something is a visceral kind of hatred, half of it directed at himself and half at everyone else that got them into this mess in the first place.

He feels like he’s let Jim down so many times, over the past couple of weeks, and he knows his silence now is just another betrayal to add the list.

“He’s fine,” he says, because he has to say something, but the words end up sounding even more inadequate than they’d felt inside his head.

What’s going to happen to them?

Will Jim ever trust Sam again, after this?

It’s a question he can’t bear to think through to any kind of conclusion.

Maybe Sam should ask how Tony is.

He doesn’t.

There’s a quick rap on the door, which makes Sam twitch - fuck, is this what his life’s going to be like again? Jumping at every shadow-flicker, flinching at slammed doors and backfiring cars as though they’re grenades and gunshots?

And those are only the obvious things, the ones everyone thinks of when they think about soldiers with PTSD.

There’s so much more than that. There’s losing time, doubting your own mind every second of every day, isolating yourself from the people you know who’ve never been to war because what the hell could they know about what you’re going through, isolating yourself from the people who _have,_ because they’re worse, sometimes, the way that they _do_ know, even though you feel like surely no-one’s ever felt this bleak, this hopeless - this _useless_ \- before.

He knows he has the strength to get through it. He’s done it before, after all.

But he - he isn’t sure if he wants to.

He stifles that thought before it can grow. It’s been a seed inside his mind for a long, long time, and he’s self-aware enough to know he’ll never be rid of it.

He can stop it from growing, though, and most days he even wants to.

The door opens before either he or Jim say anything, and Jim’s mom steps through.

Sam should probably remember her name.

Is it weird, how little the two of them have talked about Jim’s family? Sam tells stories about his all the time, about Sarah and little Jody, about his mom, all the extended cousins.

That’s something to torture himself with another time.

He stands up, feeling as though his bones creak with the movement. He’s never felt older than this, and at the same time never felt less sure of what he should be doing.

He’s - directionless, or something. Adrift, with no way to anchor himself. 

“Here,” Jim’s mom says to him, brisk and purposeful, and she holds out a neatly-wrapped sandwich that Sam finds himself taking even before he’s realised what it is.

One part of his brain yells at him - _could have been a grenade, you’re supposed to be a soldier_ \- while another part shouts back - it’s Jim’s mom, she might hate me but she isn’t about to blow me up with a fucking sandwich in disguise, god - and every other part just looks on, in the numb confusion that’s rapidly becoming as familiar to him as breathing.

“Thanks,” he remembers to say, hoping a normal amount of seconds just passed and that he hasn’t been standing there holding a sandwich like it was about to explode on him for a whole minute.

“You look like you’re about to fall over,” she says, then turns to her son. “Jamie, please tell Tony that he really doesn’t have to buy us a house while we stay here. He’s put us up in a perfectly lovely hotel, that’s more than enough.”

_Jamie?_

Sam doesn’t feel dismissed, or unwanted. Not exactly. But - he doesn’t quite feel like he’s needed here, anymore, and for him - at least right now, in the state of mind he can’t seem to fucking snap out of - not being needed isn’t far off not being wanted.

Maybe he’ll regret it later, but he moves towards the door, still clutching the sandwich like it’s some weird-ass lifeline.

“You better eat that, Wilson,” Jim says, sounding nothing but casual, as Sam turns to leave.

He can’t guess what unvoiced words - if any, could be Sam’s overthinking everything, wouldn’t be the first time - might lie underneath that simple request. He doesn’t think he could guess even if he was in his right mind.

Sam nods, back still turned, but finds he can’t leave without one last look. He glances over his shoulder, for less than a second, and Jim’s gaze is waiting for him.

Sam just nods again, because his throat feels all closed up and he doesn’t know if he could talk right now even if he could find the strength to try.

And then he walks out the door. Away from Jim.

Towards -

He doesn’t even know.

He unwraps the sandwich as he walks back down the hall, some distant part of his brain wondering what the hell happened to his duffel bag.

He takes a bite, his mind on autopilot again. It doesn’t taste of much; his senses aren’t exactly firing on all cylinders right now, but he chews and swallows anyway, the mechanical motions easing something inside of him.

Sam hadn’t known if he’d feel better or worse after seeing Jim. He’d only known that it didn’t matter, that he had to see him either way.

He still isn’t sure what he’s feeling. Maybe he’s just going to have to live with that a while longer. He knows he needs to see his family, and that they need to see him.

The rest - whatever that might be - is just going to have to wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be Rhodey's POV, finally! Doubt it will be up till January sometime though (can you believe how close we are to 2017?? where did that go?). (edited August to laugh at myself for taking eight months)
> 
> Any comments, short or long, are always loved!


	4. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim blinks in shock as his sister pulls up to their parents’ house and he looks out of the car window. It’s the house he’d grown up in, and until now it had barely changed since then. There’d always been something comforting in his parents’ love of routine; back when he was stationed overseas he’d been able to picture every single ornament on his mom’s shelves and know with certainty that they’d be in the exact same place when he got back. Same with his dad’s books, and with every picture on the wall. He’d found it kind of boring as a child, but now their house feels more like home than his apartment in central DC does.
> 
> It’s very recognisable still, of course, but there are a couple of major changes. The entire walkway from the gate to the front door has been redone, and there’s a sturdy-looking wheelchair ramp already installed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is finally Jim's POV. It's a series of snapshots rather than one long scene; I hope it works and feel free to give feedback. 
> 
> After the very long delayed between chapter 3 and this one, I'm posting 4 and 5 together and finishing the fic there. I hope I managed to tie up any loose ends, but there should be a sequel one day!

* * *

Jim grits his teeth. He can either keep upright or hold back the words he’s keeping clenched inside; he doesn’t have the energy to do both right now.

“No, Tony,” he says, and he knows it comes out exactly as firm as he’d wanted it to.

Tony opens his mouth, then closes it again, then just nods once. “Right. Right, yeah. Too - too fast. I’ll - c’mon, let me grab your chair.”

Jim sinks back down into his wheelchair, which already feels more familiar than just about anything else does. He can’t quite figure out how he feels about that - or about a lot of things - just yet. Tony’s hovering next to him, clearly unsure what to do next.

“We need to work on the designs together more,” Jim says, reaching down to adjust the way his legs are lying. “And I’m not up to it just yet. I know patience isn’t your best quality -”

“You’re right,” Tony interrupts. Jim just gives him a dry look - what had he just been saying about patience? “I’m - you’re right,” Tony continues, fiddling with the leg braces that Jim is so relieved aren’t bearing his weight anymore. “I’m pushing this, I know I am. But - I know we can make something great.”

Jim sighs. “So bring in more people to trial them.” He steers himself over to a nearby table - he’d been surprised by how intuitive moving the chair had felt from the start, though of course it is the best design on the market - and grabs a bottle of water. “People who’ve been living with shit like this for longer than I have. I can help you with the designs and the engineering side. I just don’t want to be your test subject right now. It -”

He breaks off and shakes his head, taking a quick gulp of water and trying not to feel like he’s swallowing the words he’d almost said down with it.

_It hurts too much._

He loves Tony, and most of the time he likes him as well. But when the guy gets his mind set on something -

He wishes Pepper was around more, though he doesn’t blame her for keeping her distance. He might ring her tomorrow, he decides; they’re overdue for a catch-up. She could probably use a friendly ear; keeping Stark Industries running in the last few months must have been a hell of a job. Plus he kind of wants someone impartial to talk to him about what he’s going to say when he next sees Sam.

“Want to go take apart a Ferrari?” Tony asks, in that tone he uses when he’s trying very hard to sound like he couldn’t give a fuck what the answer to his request is going to be.

Jim smiles, and reaches down to unbuckle the last few straps holding his leg braces in place. “Sounds like a plan.” He hands the braces to Tony, who places them carefully back on their stands and takes a step back, staring at them for a moment as though he can’t quite bring himself to be awake while he isn’t working on them.

“Come on then,” Jim calls out from over by the lift, snapping Tony out of whatever spiral he’d disappeared down just then. “And we need to figure out a decent car for me.”

* * *

Jim blinks in shock as his sister pulls up to their parents’ house and he looks out of the car window. It’s the house he’d grown up in, and until now it had barely changed since then. There’d always been something comforting in his parents’ love of routine; back when he was stationed overseas he’d been able to picture every single ornament on his mom’s shelves and know with certainty that they’d be in the exact same place when he got back. Same with his dad’s books, and with every picture on the wall. He’d found it kind of boring as a child, but now their house feels more like home than his apartment in central DC does.

It’s very recognisable still, of course, but there are a couple of major changes. The entire walkway from the gate to the front door has been redone, and there’s a sturdy-looking wheelchair ramp already installed.

He clears his throat. “When did you do this?” 

Laura parks the car - a rented one with plenty of space for wheelchairs, but as soon as Jim has some free time that isn’t taken up by hospital visits, he’s going to get himself one of those ones he can drive himself - and rolls her eyes.

“It didn’t take that long,” she says, which isn’t an answer, before getting out of the car and walking round to open the side of the car for him. “There’s a stairlift inside and that. And we redid the downstairs bathroom.” She fixes the little portable ramp in place and gives him a nod.

“I - thanks,” he says, hoping she’ll get that he means for everything.

Laura watches him roll down the ramp. “What did you say when I thanked you for helping me out with transition shit? Coming with me to appointments, explaining everything to the family. You did a lot.”

Jim doesn’t actually remember whatever he’d said; it’s been a few years since she came out. “Something very wise, I’m sure.”

She laughs, and punches his shoulder gently. “Kind of, actually. You just said I’d do the same for you. And you were right. Not that - it’s different, I know. But we’re family.”

“This is getting overly emotional,” Jim says, just as he sees the front door open. “Be honest with me. How many family members are on the other side of that door?”

Laura laughs again. “Let’s go find out, yeah?”

“You’re a terrible sister,” Jim informs her, meaning the exact opposite, and he follows her home.

* * *

“Fuck this.”

His physio doesn’t react, unsurprisingly. She’s definitely heard a hell of a lot worse than that, after working with injured vets for twenty years.

“We can take a break in five,” she says, calm but stern, and Jim sighs and braces himself for one more round of that horrible feeling that isn’t quite pain but feels like it should be.

Ten minutes later, after he’s downed half a bottle of water, he turns to her. “Be honest with me,” he says, deciding to ignore the way her expression closes off a little. “How am I doing?”

She takes a small sip of her water. “You know you’ll never be the same, Rhodes. I don’t sugarcoat, not unless people want me to. But you’re getting on well. Your upper body strength was already excellent, which always helps people transition to being wheelchair users. You just need to give yourself time.”

It’s about what he’d expected to hear, and he doesn’t know whether he’s glad for that or not.

“Now, we’re still on the clock,” she says briskly. “I’m going to show you the best way for you to do press-ups, and you’re going to tell me if you’ve been keeping up with the exercises when you’re at home.”

* * *

Tony literally fistpumps the air when they finally get the legs right. “Yes! Genius.”

Jim takes one more careful step, making sure to keep both his hands on the support rails still. “Thanks,” he says, smiling to himself.

“Fuck you, I meant me.” Tony kneels down. “I think they might need a bit of adjusting still - hang on -”

Jim takes another, very deliberate step. “Stark, you can tweak the damn things when I’m not wearing them. And I’ll thank you to remember that I was the reason we turned the corner with the ankle joint. Genius indeed.”

Tony stands up, looking suspiciously emotional. “Oh, come here,” Jim says, and he lets go of one of the bars and holds his arm out, pulling Tony into an awkward side-hug.

He makes it to the end of the rails, turns very carefully around and walks their length again, keeping his breathing as steady as he can.

“Think this calls for a beer or two,” he says once he’s settled back in his wheelchair. “And then we can start figuring out how to make everything cheaper so more than ten people in the world can have them.”

Tony looks away, fiddling with a few screws on his workbench. “I might be back on my meds,” he says. “So maybe - um. Pizza?”

Jim doesn’t let his relief at hearing that show. "I could go for pizza,” he says easily, steering himself over to the elevator. “And how about a Pacific Rim rewatch? We’ve only seen it, what, eight times?”

* * *

Jim’s trying not to be frustrated, either with himself or Sam, but it’s difficult. This is the first time they’ve met up since Jim was in hospital, and so far they’ve barely even managed a few sentences of awkward small talk. Which isn’t like them at all; usually even if one of them’s angry or upset about something they can still talk things through.

“So,” he says, staring into his coffee. They’re in one of the staff cafés that are every few floors in the Tower; neither of them had particularly wanted to be surrounded by the general public and their smartphones, and Jim’s not about to invite Sam back to his place until he knows where they stand.

Sam’s been cleared of all charges, as have Clint and Scott. Wanda and Steve are more complicated, but Jim knows that people are working on their situation as well. He just - he can’t quite believe things got to this point. He’s still angry at Tony for a lot of reasons, but he was there when Tony got the news about his parents’ death and he knows better than almost anyone else just how complicated the whole situation was. He's far from pleased with Steve as well, but that's a little easier to sort out in his mind - Steve hasn't been his best friend for two decades, after all.

Jim’s got a meeting with some high-ups at the Pentagon next week, to talk things through. He’s mainly hoping to get Thaddeus Ross as far away from the issue as possible, but he’s got a few other subjects to bring up as well. He suspects the Avengers are going to be officially disbanded, which he’s fine with. He’s still surprised they made it as far as they did. He just wishes their last stand had been against something other than themselves.

But that isn’t what they’ve come here to talk about. Today is about him and Sam. About where they stand, whether they want to continue their relationship or not. 

Jim knows what he wants, but he doesn’t want to put any pressure on Sam.

“I should never have said that playing both sides comment,” Sam says abruptly. “I didn’t think about how it would sound.”

Jim can’t help but think back. _How long are you going to play both sides?_ That argument hadn’t been that long ago, not really, but it feels like half a lifetime.

“I know,” he says. “That wasn’t about us. I’m not holding it against you.”

Sam sighs. “You weren’t wrong, is the thing. I just -”

He breaks off. Jim isn’t sure what the best thing to say would be say, so he stays silent.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” Sam says, finally looking up and meeting Jim’s eyes. “I still - care about you, obviously.” 

Jim tries hard not to glance around to check that it doesn’t look like anyone’s reading their lips. From Sam’s raised eyebrow, he’s pretty sure he hadn’t been subtle enough.

“I care about you too,” he says, mildly surprised when the words aren’t at all hard to say.

One corner of Sam’s mouth quirks up - not in the smile that Jim could look at every day for the rest of his life, but not all that far from it either. “So,” Sam says again, but this time it sounds more amused than anything else. “Want to try again?”

Jim opens his mouth to say _fuck yes,_ but hesitates at the last second. “You - you know things won’t be the same. I mean, we’re not sure what my exact prognosis is right now. A lot’s up in the air.”

He’d already had that small insecurity about Sam being younger than him. Now Jim’s in a wheelchair, and even when he’s able to wear the new leg braces more he still won’t have the same range of motion. There’s some sensation that most likely won’t ever come back, which will impact any kind of - of physical relationship. Does Sam really know what he’s signing up for?

“James Rupert Rhodes,” Sam says solemnly, which is more than enough to startle Jim out of his introspection. “Just say yes, okay. Trust me to know what I want.”

Jim smiles, and doesn’t look anywhere but at Sam when he does it. “Yeah,” he says, and is rewarded with Sam smiling back. “Let’s do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if it feels like I'm skating over important issues to do with the aftermath of Civil War. That's the main reason the second half of this fic was delayed for so long, because I wanted to find the time/energy to do some proper research. I have done some, but other aspects are going to have to wait for the sequel. I really wanted to finish this fic after it's been a WIP for so long, I do hope it doesn't feel rushed because of that. I promise I will be writing lots more Sam/Rhodey in the future.
> 
> Feel free to let me know in the comments if a) you think there's anything I should fix here, no matter how minor it might be (though of course no obligation, I'll try and do lots of critical rereads myself) or b) if there's anything you'd like to see in the sequel/sequels! (e.g. I'd like to write more family scenes for both of them.)
> 
> And now onto the final chapter!


	5. Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam reaches out and takes Jim’s hand, ignoring any intrusive thoughts that might want to interrupt an otherwise nice moment. “You think you can remember how to be a civilian again?”
> 
> Jim laughs. “You managed it, how hard can it be?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm uploading chapters 4 and 5 at the same time, so if you're a subscriber do check you've already read chapter 4 before this one. Thank you so much for reading <3
> 
> Chapter warning for discussion of sex (but no sexual content).

* * *

Sam walks through the park, keeping his eyes on the trees rather than the people, not wanting to look up and see recognition in someone’s eyes.

He wonders how long it will take for him to feel excitement again when he hears someone say _hey, that guy looks like the Falcon,_ rather than fear or paranoia. 

How many kids will be dressing up as him this year?

It’s been five months now since - since everything, so he guesses it’s going to be a while longer before he stops being suspicious of everyone around him. His name’s been cleared, sure; all the legal issues have been mostly sorted out - with the four of them that had been imprisoned in the Raft, anyway; Steve and Bucky’s problems are going to take a hell of a lot longer - but that doesn’t mean people have forgotten.

Well. He hasn’t, at least. He can’t speak for the rest of the world; he tries never to read the comments on any article about the Avengers.

He’s way too early. Jim had said to meet him here at three, and it’s barely past two now. 

They usually meet outside for their dates these days. Jim claims it’s because he wants to test whatever the latest version of the StarkTech wheelchair is out on every type of terrain he can find. 

Sam isn’t so sure. He’s pretty sure that Jim’s picked up on the way Sam gets just a little twitchy when he’s inside unfamiliar buildings. The way he glances at all the exits every few minutes, just a quick sweep to check that none of them have been closed or locked since they came in.

It’s so fucking irrational. Who would want to lay siege to a coffee shop?

But he’s no rookie at this, at any of it, and he doesn’t beat himself up too much for the irrationality. He knows the ways your mind can twist itself into weird shapes after trauma - or, rather, he knows just how much he _doesn’t_ know about it - and he isn’t about to start feeling guilty over needing time to - heal, or process, or whatever.

Still. He hates that he’s having to go through this all over again, as if he hadn’t already had enough of it for more than one lifetime.

There’s a tree off to one side; an old sycamore, reaching proudly up to the sky. Sam goes over to it, thinking he might as well stand in its shelter till Jim gets here. 

It’s a nice afternoon. One of those September days when you can almost feel the season changing, the heat of summer clinging in the air, the gentler warmth of fall starting to take over. There’s a little breeze, not cold, and it carries a freshness with it that makes him breathe deeply, taking the air into his lungs and holding it there until his heart starts to beat faster from the strain. 

Reminding himself that he can breathe this air as long as he wants to; nobody’s about to throw a bag over his head and drag him off to god knows where.

He looks to the sky, through the branches. 

The wind picks up, enough for a few of the oddly shaped seeds to be dislodged from the branches. Spinning jennys, his mom calls them.

He fixes his eyes on one, watches it tumble towards him, in freefall. Spiralling gently towards the ground, its wings outstretched, twisting and turning and always, always falling - and with no warning at all, his mind goes blank.

* * *

A voice is calling him, quietly, from far away. That doesn’t make sense, some part of Sam’s brain thinks, and he turns towards it slowly.

Oh.

“Hi, Jim,” he says, trying hard to sound like a person who hasn’t just snapped out of a minor dissociative episode.

It doesn’t sound very convincing, even to his ears.

“Hey,” is all Jim says, and there’s no judgement anywhere to be seen on his face. “You want to go sit for a few?”

Sam doesn’t answer for a couple of seconds. The idea of making some joke about Jim always sitting these days crosses his mind, and he bites his tongue. He just nods, silent, and starts walking over to the most out-of-the-way bench he can see. Jim doesn’t mention the delayed reaction; he just follows, his wheels moving easily over the grass.

“Stark fixed the traction thing?” Sam asks after he’s sat down, not wanting to give Jim a chance to jump in with some question about how Sam’s doing.

It’s pretty fucking obvious how he’s doing today. They don’t need to talk about it.

Jim rolls his eyes. “He fixed that in under two hours. He then claimed that he needed to borrow it for another few hours to see if he could make it work on sand."

Sam shakes his head. “Are you sure he hasn’t hidden some kind of propulsion system in there? Wouldn’t put it past Stark to think there’s a gap in the market for a flying wheelchair.”

“I’m a damn good engineer, Sam,” Jim says, his lips turning up at the corners slightly. “I think I’d figure it out if I was going round in some kind of Transformer."

“You still thinking about focusing on that? Your engineering?”

Jim hums to himself for a moment. “I think so, yeah. I can still advise the military, obviously, but I’ve been wanting to take a step back from that for a long time. Even before - all this.” He makes a vague waving gesture, as if to say _you know, the Accords and the fact that we fought on different sides briefly, oh and the fact that I fell so far that I was lucky to survive at all._

Sam reaches out and takes Jim’s hand, ignoring any intrusive thoughts that might want to interrupt an otherwise nice moment. “You think you can remember how to be a civilian again?”

Jim laughs. “You managed it, how hard can it be?”

“I pretty much jumped at the chance to get my wings out again,” Sam says wryly. “Don’t know if I’m an example you want to be following.”

“What was that like? You never really talked about it, but it must have been different, right? Flying here instead of Afghanistan, I mean.”

Sam looks at Jim. There’s nothing but honest curiosity in his gaze, and a steady kind of calm that Sam missed so much in the weeks they were apart.

“I don’t know if I can explain it,” he says slowly. “It was different, yeah. More - free? If that doesn’t sound too corny. But it was nothing compared to my first flight after - after Riley.”

Jim doesn’t answer with words, but he runs his thumb along the side of Sam’s hand, a soft, repetitive motion that echoes a steady heartbeat.

Sam misses the way he used to fly before Riley fell. Misses it in the way you can never quite hold onto a dream once you open your eyes. You know it was there, inside your mind, but all you can do is catch whatever floating threads you can and try to stitch them together in your imagination. 

It isn’t the same. It never can be.

He wonders if he’ll ever fly again. 

“I used to feel so heavy, when I was back on the ground again,” he says quietly. It’s a confession he’s never let himself make, not even to Riley, who would have understood more than anyone else.

 _Heavy_ maybe isn’t quite the right word - or it is, but not in a literal sense.

Like a sailor who’s been away at sea too long, who sets foot on land and feels uneasy when it stays steady beneath him.

Like someone who loses something they’d never known they could have.

“I can understand that,” is all Jim says in reply, and Sam knows it’s the truth.

Jim’s hand and his words feel like an anchor, and in the back of his mind Sam wonders when _anchored_ had become something he wanted out of life. “I miss the way I used to fly,” he says, trying to make his thoughts from a few minutes ago sound coherent before he says them aloud. “Before Riley. It was never the same, after that. I still -”

He has to stop and clear his throat. Jim doesn’t say anything, but Sam knows he’s listening. “I still love it,” he goes on, thinking about the way it had felt to get his wings back, the way he’d never wanted to come back to earth. “But - it never feels quite real, now. I’m always so conscious that it’s going to end, somewhere in the back of my mind. People say that knowing something is finite makes it more beautiful, you know? Like flowers, or whatever.” He pauses, not sure whether he wants to say the rest of what he’s thinking, knowing that he’s going to anyway. “But all it does is make me scared of what will happen when it ends.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, lost in thought. 

“Tony says he can design me a War Machine suit that doesn’t require the use of my legs,” Jim says finally, and to other people that might not seem like an answer to Sam’s words. But it is, oh it is.

“You don’t want that,” Sam says, knowing that he isn’t putting words into Jim’s mouth; they’ve talked about this before, or at least the possibility of it, and now that it’s closer to reality he still doesn’t think Jim’s answer will have changed.

He doesn’t _think_ it will, but he doesn’t know for sure.

“No. No, I don’t.” The words sound heavy, final. A chapter closing, for the last time.

Sam closes his eyes. “Tony will understand,” he says. “Or if he doesn’t, Pepper will make him.”

Jim laughs a little at that, quiet but still real, and Sam feels an answering echo of pleasure spark inside his chest, at the knowledge that even in their most solemn moments he can still make Jim laugh.

He opens his eyes again, and Jim’s looking straight into them, warm and kind and - and God, Sam loves him so much.

“I love you,” he says, as soon as he thinks it, and Jim’s smile is no different than it had been the first time Sam had found the courage to speak those words. As though he could never grow tired of hearing them.

Sam really hopes that’s true.

“I love you too.” Jim hadn’t even glanced around, to check that no-one was nearby. Sam does it for him; they’re alone still, in their little corner of the park. “Let’s head back to my place, alright?”

* * *

Sam loves Jim’s apartment. It’s the top floor - literally the entire top floor - of a block that overlooks this park. It used to be secure living quarters for SHIELD agents, but Tony had bought it after SHIELD collapsed, and now it’s mostly empty. 

Best of all, Jim is the only one with access to the roof. And inside his apartment there are skylights in almost every room that can only be seen through from the inside - Sam’s tested them very thoroughly from the roof; he had to be certain, since one of the skylights is in the bedroom. 

“Sounds good,” he says, and they turn towards one of the only places Sam feels at home.

Things have been - not too bad, over the past few months. 

He’s back at work, though he’s mostly been doing the admin side of things. He’s been attending groups, sure, but he doesn’t feel quite ready to start leading them again yet. All his co-workers have been more than understanding about that, just like he’d known they would be.

He’s got a lot of people on his side. He’s lucky, really; things could have turned out so much worse than they had. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” 

Sam laughs, forcing himself to pay attention to what’s happening right now, not whatever his brain decides it wants to dwell on today. “Fuck you,” he says easily, pushing the button to open the automatic door to Jim’s building. “They’re worth a lot more than that.”

“You could, you know,” Jim says, guiding his wheelchair inside with easy, practiced movements - Tony had based his initial designs around a neural network, with the goal of someday syncing the chair to someone’s thoughts, but Jim had flatly refused. It’s still the absolute pinnacle of technology, though, and the effort required to steer it is minimal.

Jim had said once that maybe it was a good thing he’d got injured, since now people all over the world were going to benefit from wheelchairs and mobility aids that are at least three years ahead of every competitor. He’d insisted that Tony figure out a way to make more affordable models, as well, and the first batch had been donated to hospitals around the country in August.

Sam privately thinks that Tony should just figure out what the most useful technology to focus on would be _without_ needing to have major disasters affect him and his friends first, but he keeps that to himself. Probably the same thought has occurred to Jim, anyway.

“Could what?” Sam asks absently, nodding a greeting at the two security guards on duty in the lobby. 

“Think through the last few sentences,” is all Jim says, and Sam frowns as they get into the lift.

“Think what - oh. _Oh.”_

“Mhm.” Jim sounds very smug, but Sam’s too busy trying to process what just happened to make any kind of reply.

Their sex life had really not been a priority for either of them over the last few months. Hadn’t even been in the top ten things Sam thought about on a daily basis. They’ve made a few steps in the direction of being, well, physical with other again, but it’s never going to be the same.

Which Sam really doesn’t give a fuck about, and he isn’t sure where that casual implication - _you could fuck me_ \- of Jim’s is coming from.

He waits until they’re inside the apartment to say that, though, since the lifts are monitored. Jim’s place is too, technically, but only by Friday, and even then she - it? Sam never has any idea what the protocols are with AIs - only activates on request or if she detects some kind of emergency. 

“We don’t have to,” Jim says, parking his chair next to the couch and lifting himself onto it, his arms straining with the effort.

Sam really wishes it hadn’t been warm enough out for Jim to wear a short-sleeved t-shirt, because his biceps are extremely fucking distracting.

He kicks his shoes off and takes a seat at the other end of the couch, gently lifting Jim’s feet into his lap.

“I know we don’t have to,” Sam says, really wishing he knew where Jim was going with this. “That was going to be my line.”

Jim rolls his eyes. “Can we both just agree to not worry about offending each other for a few minutes?”

Sam nods, even more wary now.

“Good,” Jim says, leaning back so his arms are resting on the side of the couch. “Right. So, my dick doesn’t work right. Might never do, who knows. Which, you know, I’m pushing fifty, so we were probably going to be dealing with a minor version of this at some point anyway.”

He pauses, maybe so that Sam can jump in with some clever insight or suggestion.

“Um,” Sam says, which is not at all the level of coherence he’d been aiming for. _Pull yourself together,_ he orders himself sternly; just because they haven’t talked about their sex life quite this bluntly before doesn’t give him an excuse to make it a one-sided conversation. Besides, there’s at least one very important thing he needs to say. “Jim. You know that I’m fine with us never having sex again, if we don’t get there. You know that, right?”

“Sam, you’re the kind of guy who checks in before giving someone a hug, Christ. Of course you’re not going to be an asshole about it if we never have sex again. My point was that _I_ want us to have sex again someday. Again, only if you want to.”

There’s not a hint of insecurity in those last words, but Sam still frowns at them. “I’m not less attracted to you since - well. But we always, um.” Why is this so awkward to talk about? “The other way around, before.”

Not that they’d even done that very often; it had mostly been hands and mouths and one very embarrassing incident where no-one had even managed to get their clothes off in time.

“So? Look, it’s something to think about. And I didn't necessarily mean the you fucking me literally; there's a lot of other things we could do. I want to wait a while and see how much sensation I get back, but I’m just saying.” Jim frowns, but he doesn't look upset. “Right now, I think I need to take a piss.”

Sam has to admit he's a bit grateful for the subject change. “Same here,” he says, standing up and stretching his arms over his head. He doesn’t miss the way Jim’s gaze goes straight to where Sam’s shirt rises up, and he smiles to himself.

They’ll get there. Whatever goals they set themselves, whatever private ones Jim has, Sam has no doubt that somehow they’ll figure out how to make them happen.

* * *

They’re settled back on the couch, with Brooklyn 99 playing in the background - an episode they’ve both seen before, so they aren’t paying it too much attention. 

“Sam?”

“Hm?”

“I want to come out,” Jim says, and Sam’s heartrate immediately feels like it doubles its speed. “To my family. Our friends. And I want to make a public announcement, as well.”

Sam has a moment where his mind goes blank, where he doesn’t know what to say. “I - wow. Where did that come from?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, actually,” Jim says slowly. “Didn’t want to get your hopes up.”

Sam frowns. “You could still have talked to me about it. I wouldn’t have put any pressure on you.” He’d have tried hard not to, at least. Sure, he doesn’t love the whole _secret_ part of the secret relationship thing, but it’s more than worth it if the trade-off is having Jim in his life. He’s never wavered on that decision, not once. 

“I know that. I had a few things I wanted to figure out on my own first.”

“Alright,” Sam says. “Well - whenever you’re ready, I’m with you.”

Jim smiles, and Sam knows all over again that he’ll never, ever get tired of seeing that expression. “I know you are,” Jim says quietly. “I’ve always known that.”

That _always -_

Sam doesn’t have the words to say how much that means, but the best part is that he knows he doesn’t need to. He thinks back to that first date with Jim, about how he’d been struck by how easy it was for him to feel comfortable, how he hadn’t been second-guessing his words or his expressions or anything about himself.

It had just felt - right.

And Sam doesn’t know how to put that into words.

“I’m going to fix us something to eat,” he says instead, standing up and closing his eyes for half a moment to get rid of the prickling sensation behind them.

“Alright. Hey, pass me that notebook? I think I’ve got an idea for how to improve my car. Just need to work out the math.”

Sam grabs the notebook and a pen, and the little tray table Jim uses when he’s on the couch, and passes them all over. “You comfy?”

Jim makes an absentminded sound, already busy scribbling out a complicated-looking equation. “Hm?”

Sam smiles to himself. “Nothing,” he says, heading into the kitchen. “I’m making risotto, sound good?”

“Great!”

He isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to put all his thoughts into words. He’d have to untangle them first, sort out the way they looped and twisted around each other, _I don’t want to be with anyone else ever again_ inextricably tied up with _we shouldn’t get too dependent on each other_ \- there’s just so much that he can’t unravel.

But the thing is, he knows he doesn’t need to. At least not right now. Jim understands him, maybe better than anyone else ever has. And as Sam moves around Jim’s kitchen, bending down to get everything out of the cupboards that have been lowered to a good height for someone in a wheelchair, he knows he wouldn’t give that up. Not for anything.

Maybe he’ll never fly again. Maybe neither of them ever will.

But they can keep each other anchored when they need to, can stay grounded together. 

And Sam would rather have this than a lifetime of flight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I didn't quite do what I set out to with this fic. As with several other WIPS, I very confidently started posting it and then had a bit of upheaval in my regular life. Things (including my writing, yay) are getting back on track now, but I feel it's better to end the fic here and one day post a sequel than to keep drawing it out for another year of potential updates. I hope you feel this ending works - there is a lot unsaid beneath the surface, especially to do with Rhodey's injury, but as I said I hope to explore this AU more one day.
> 
> One note: obviously physical relationships are different for everyone, and for people with disabilities there can be extra layers of complications. Rhodey isn't ready to have sex again just yet, but if he and Sam want to again in the future there are various ways. An injury like his doesn't have to mean an end to his sex life, but as usual I didn't feel able to actually write a sex scene. So feel free to imagine them working things out in a few months or something (though of course if they never want to that's all good too!).
> 
> Thank you so much if you commented on earlier chapters, you kept me going! But thank you to those who didn't, still a big thank you for reading this, it was an experimental fic that I'm proud of, even if it didn't live up to my hopes for it. I'll be back some time. And keep an eye out for my Sam Wilson Birthday Bang fic!


End file.
